INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HEALTH PROBLEMS in TROPICAL AMERICA (1924) Page 828. Discussion, by Dr. Milton J. Rosenau

From Jim O'Kelly

Page 22. Take 5 minutes to read this true experiment. you will be shocked.
From the book, INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HEALTH PROBLEMS in TROPICAL AMERICA (1924)
Page 828. Discussion, by Dr. Milton J. Rosenau-" I happened to be the chairman of a commission that conducted some experiments on the disease of influenza, the commission consisting of medical officers of the United States Public Health Service, the United States Navy, in which I was serving, and my Department of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, at Harvard University. We focused attention on the mode of spread of the disease, being convinced that from the practical standpoint, if we had definite knowledge of the mode of spread of a disease, we should be able to control it, and that without that knowledge we should be working in the dark. We had 99 volunteers to work on, without a history of influenza, and they were all sturdy, healthy, young adults-persons serving in the Navy.

We proceeded on the supposition that Pfeiffer's bacillus was the cause of influenza, and we took old, attenuated cultures which had been in the laboratory since 1892, and placed them with considerable trepidation upon the nostrils of these volunteers. Soon we came to the conclusion, not from the experiment alone, but from others as well, that Pfeiffer's bacillus was not the cause of influenza. We then transferred cultures, freshly isolated from the lungs of fatal cases of influenza, to the nostrils and also spread it on the throats of these volunteers, and that produced no disease. Then we took some of the material from the nose and throat, and some of the matter coughed up, and placed it in very minute quantites upon the lips and nostrils of some of our volunteers, and none of these showed any effect.

Then we took some of the raw stuff from the nose and mouth of the donors (sick with influenza), and we had literally hundreds of typical cases to choose from, this being the height of the epidemic) and we transferred that without producing any result. It then occurred to us that perhaps we were dealing with an exceedingly frail virus that died very soon; we were collecting this from various sources, in and around Boston, and taking it to Gallaps Island where we had the volunteers with nurses and attendants, and perhaps the virus coud not stand that delay.

We next brought the volunteers to Chelsea and transferred the material directly from nose to nose and throat to throat without any delay, on pluggets of cotton, and none of these persons took sick in any way. After collecting a very large quantity of material, we gave some of our volunteers some of this material to drink, and filtered some of it and injected it subcutaneously, and still no one was made ill.

Page 23.
I shall now describe a contact experiment :- We took 20 of our volunteers and placed them in direct contact with 20 selected cases, or donors. These donors had been selected with all the care that clinical skill could make possible. We took cases as early in the disease as possible,-mild cases and severe cases--all with fever, with leucopenia, with cough and the other indications that we have of influenza. I shall follow only one case, and ask you to remember that the other 19 were doing just the same as this one:-

This volunteer is brought up to the bed beside the donor and placed on a little stool, both donor and volunteer cooperating. They shake hands and talk close together for 5 minutes. Then at a signal (ringing of a bell) these 2 persons (the donor and the volunteer) get as close together face to face as they can, and the patient breathes out quite hard while the volunteer receives this breath, breathing it in 5 times, and after that the donor coughs right into the face of the volunteer. After about 10 minutes he then moves to the next selected patient, so that each volunteer comes in contact with each of the selected cases.

This being accomplished, we took the volunteers back to the island, watched their temperature, etc., and not one of them took sick in any way. We then thought that perhaps we were not getting the donors as early in the disease as might be desirable. In fact, epidemiology points to the fact that influenza may be most communicable during its early stages--perhaps during the period of incubation. So we tried to get such cases.

The disease broke out in a naval prison at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, near Boston. We took volunteers to Portsmouth and selected 20 persons from the parts of the prison where the disease seemed to be most prevalent, in the hope that among these 20 we should find persons in some of whom the disease would later develop. Not one of these prison cases did later develop the disease. Among the volunteers who received the material, nose to nose, and mouth to mouth, half of them came down with septic sore-throat.

I don't want anybody to infer from these experiments that influenza is not spread by secretions (germs) from the mouth and nose, from one person to another, as we think it is, but perhaps there are factors not understood."

jim's comment. There is your proof that germs/virus are not the cause of the flu. This doctor can't believe his own experiment. Shows you how programmed this profession is.

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International Conference on Health Problems in Tropical America- Boston: United Fruit Company, 1924. 1,010 pp.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Proceedings_of_the_International_Confere.html?id=xKtfAAAAMAAJ

Amazon:  https://amzn.to/2wMW5xG

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5188761/

1925_Thomas Oliver_Influenzal Pneumonia in some of its pathological aspects.pdf